Cool Customers Sept 20, 2017

A guy came in today and shared something noteworthy with me, so I thought I’d pass it on to you, the readers of our blog.

He mentioned that his brother has a cannabis shop in Seattle, and that people want to buy plants and candies with credit and debit cards, but can’t. Why? Because cannabis prohibition is still ongoing in Washington, DC.

“But cannabis is legal in Washington state,” you say.

That’s true. But banks and corporations that issue credit and debit cards fear the Feds will shut them down if they process transactions for cannabis shops. So what are the shops to do?

As you might expect, many turned to bitcoin. But after Washington State threatened to make it illegal for cannabis shops to take bitcoin, a new bank-and-regulator-friendly cryptocurrency appeared. It’s called POSaBIT, and apparently the shops and customers are using it. Here’s what I found after a quick search:

That reminds me — I keep seeing an ad pop up on Facebook — maybe you’ve seen it too. It’s for “Paragon Coin” and it has a pot leaf symbol. It seems to be aiming for the same market. Currency for pot sales. I personally don’t get why there would need to be a certain currency for a particular object, like cannabis. Why can’t they just use bitcoin? If you know, please tell me!